Word Of The Day: Byssus -- September 6, 2020

Before we get started, if you came to this site to catch the Bakken, the big stories were posted earlier:

• wells coming off the confidential list this week; and,
• the initial production data for wells coming off the confidential list this week;

Now, back to something completely different.

Word for the day: byssus. People in Connecticut and Maryland should know this word.

I can count on one hand, maybe two hands, the few things that have really excited me over the years when it comes to solving "mysteries." 

The first one had to do with figuring out who the "real" William Shakespeare was.

When I solve these "mysteries," I solve them for myself. Whether I am correct or not, does not matter. It matters that I can now sleep peacefully knowing that a certain "mystery" has been solved. I am willing to change my mind on any one of those solutions but until something new comes along to change my mind, I am content (as in happy, satisfied) with what I have. 

Most of my "solutions" came through my very eclectic, very demanding reading program with very little help from the internet -- initially. However, the internet provided the ability to quickly explore some of these mysteries in more depth mostly to see if I might be on the right track.

These are some of the examples. I won't provide the solutions in many cases because I don't need the push back they would likely engender. And I assume most folks have these same mysteries, or similar mysteries, and have their own answers.

But these are examples:

• as already mentioned: "discovering" the "real William Shakespeare";
• "discovering" the real genre of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway;
• the reason Goethe returned from his "Italian journey" a changed man;
• the "relationship" between Aphrodite and Helen, and how it relates to Christianity;
• the halo effect in the Bakken;
• what "existentialism" means;
  

Those are the big ones. I will add others, but from the first five it becomes a bit more difficult, and perhaps a bit of a stretch in some cases. For example, more recently:

• evolution of birds, turtles, dinosaurs, and color vision (but that's really the work of others, so doesn't quite qualify as a "personal mystery" solved)

I wrote all that as a lead-in to a "personal mystery" solved today. Again, I was able to connect the dots through a source completely unexpected.  Again, it doesn't quite qualify as a "personal mystery solved" because other had already solved the mystery. But it was an "a-ha" moment for me, and that's what county.

I've never understood the story of Jason and the Argonauts and his/their quest for the Golden Fleece. No matter how many times I started reading that story, I could never really get into it. My eyes would glaze over before the second page.

Part of the problem was the enigma of the "Golden Fleece." I never knew what it was, where it came from, why it was important.

By the way, that would be the same for The Maltese Falcon. Substitute "golden fleece" for the "Maltese falcon" and the movie would not change, except it would sound a bit cornier. A great movie and I can watch it often -- I watched it last night on DVD and then watched it again early this morning with the "commentary" feature turned on, although I quit about halfway through. The "commentary" is rather poor to say the least, at least compared to the commentary provided on the "Casablanca" DVD. [By the way, here's an opportunity to read a wonderful review of The Maltese Falcon; and, here.] [Later: I finished the commentary of The Maltese Falcon; I was wrong; superb commentary. I will watch it again (although I've probably watched it already several times, but don't recall).]

Wow, what a digression. Back to the "golden fleece." What is it? Obviously for such a myth to have come about in the first place, and then such staying power, there has to be some background to the "golden fleece." What was it? Where did the Greeks get the idea of golden fleece? I'm not sure the Greek myth actually says what the golden fleece was, and/or where it came from. It was simply there, it was simply a "thing." 

My hunch is that the golden fleece had to be an "urban myth" among the ancient Greeks. Everyone knew of it; everyone talked about it; but, no one really knew the back story. An analogy: Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail and/or the Ark. 

So, what was the "source" of the golden fleece? Hold that thought.

I was unaware that early paleontologists relied on sea shells to define many (most) of the various geologic strata. I have an old, old book -- Kingdom of the Seashell, R. Tucker Abbott -- I always wondered why this seemed to be such an important book. I've had to donate most of my library to schools after we moved to a smaller apartment, but for some reason I kept this book. I've had it for years, maybe decades --- its copyright is 1972 -- I probably picked it up in San Antonio in 2004 or thereabouts. It no longer has its dust jacket so it looks pretty crummy. But it is what it is and it's an incredible book.

Today, in my "evolution" phase, I began reading it again, but this time a lot more closely than usual. 

Think about finding specks of gold in the streams of California, the history and folklore and the stories (think Mark Twain) that this "gold rush" generated. 

Now, imagine threads of gold silk found in those same streams. Can you imagine? Well, that's exactly what happened in ancient Greece. From page 184 of Abbott's book:

The pen shells of the bivalve genus Pinna were well known to the ancients of the Mediterranean world not only as a source of a very rare golden silk, but also as a prime example of commensalism among marine creatures. Aristotle's studies included an investigation of the small, pea-sized crab that lives inside the mantle cavity of the pen shell ...

The bysuss of the Noble Pen was used by the ancients and by Sicilians as late as the nineteenth century in the manufacture of specialty clothing items, such as gloves, stockings, caps and collars. The threads, spun by the foot of the Pinna, are fine, strong and of a deep, bronze gold color.

Fishermen gathered the pen shells by using long-handled tongs, sometimes twenty feet in length. The byssal tufts were washed in soap and water, dried in the shade, combed and finally carded. A pound of byssus would produce only three ounces of high-grade threads. In 1754, a pair of sea-silk stockings was presented to Pope Benedict XV.

Queen Victoria is said to have worn a pair made in Taranto, Italy.

Some historians have suggested that the Golden Fleece, sought by the legendary Greek Jason, was a piece of cloth made from Pinna silk. Its elusive qualities may stem from the fact that the material is readily destroyed by clothes moths. Early illuminated manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries show kings wearing collars of Golden Fleece resembling Pinna silk.

Maybe if John Huston had directed "Jason and the Argonauts" starring Humphrey Bogart as Jason, and Mary Astor as Aphrodite, I might have enjoyed the myth. 

See also:

• sea silk;
• Golden Fleece;
• Jason;